Tag Archives: GM

Recent Posts

Orange Man Bad

2 Comments

From The American Spectator

As late as March 11, Mayor Bill de Blasio was still telling New York City residents to carry on life as normal: “If you’re not sick, you should be going about your life.” Two days earlier, Italy had announced a national lock down to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and cases were already beginning to appear in New York, but de Blasio did not close the city’s schools until March 15.

Now that New York City has become the epicenter of this pandemic — more than 32,000 cases as of Sunday, with nearly 700 deaths — Mayor de Blasio’s response to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak appears astonishingly irresponsible. Jim Geraghty of National Review has compiled a timeline of how New York City officials dealt with the crisis, and their recklessness seems mind boggling in hindsight. Early on, their main concern was that the virus might discourage city residents from attending Chinese New Year celebrations. “I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus,” the city’s health commissioner Oxiris Barbot said in a Feb. 9 tweet, promoting festivities in Chinatown.

As idiotic as such declarations seem now, we must note that hindsight is always 20/20, and very few Americans in early February believed that we faced any great danger of this disease becoming rampant here. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have spent recent weeks blaming President Trump for this crisis, but it is important to point out that the same people were downplaying the coronavirus threat just a few weeks ago. Trump’s critics want us to forget, for example, that when the president announced a ban on travel from China on Jan. 31, many of them condemned this measure as a racist overreaction. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” Joe Biden said the day after the China travel ban was announced, while falsely claiming that Trump had made “draconian cuts” to federal health agencies.

At that time, the known worldwide death toll from the Wuhan virus was still less than 200, and, because the Chinese government had sought to suppress facts about the disease, the scope of the danger was not apparent. The liberal media weren’t sounding the alarm, but quite the opposite. The headline on a Jan. 28 BuzzFeed article advised Americans, “Don’t Worry About The Coronavirus. Worry About The Flu.” On Jan. 29, Farhad Manjoo published a column in the New York Times with the headline “Beware the Pandemic Panic.” Manjoo downplayed the danger of the virus and instead cautioned, “What worries me more than the new disease is that fear of a vague and terrifying new illness might spiral into panic, and that it might be used to justify unnecessarily severe limits on movement and on civil liberties, especially of racial and religious minorities around the world.” One thing we can never expect from elite journalists is accountability. Rather than admitting his own errors, Manjoo simply pivoted to blaming Trump: “Coronavirus Is What You Get When You Ignore Science” was the headline on his March 4 column, in which he asserted that the president had “gut the United States’ pandemic-response infrastructure.”

This is the “Orange Man Bad” theory of causation, where everything bad is ultimately Trump’s fault, and the proponents of this theory evidently can’t understand why it has cost them their credibility. When journalists insist on interpreting every event from a partisan perspective — “How can we spin this to hurt Trump?” — their errors follow a predictable pattern. Thus, at one point, the danger of coronavirus was Trump’s “xenophobia,” which threatened “racial and religious minorities.” Now, we are told, the problem is that Trump is “anti-science.” Last week, one New York Times columnist blamed “the science denialism of [Trump’s] ultraconservative religious allies” for the coronavirus pandemic. The “evidence” cited in such tendentious arguments is irrelevant; what matters to liberals is the conclusion, i.e., Trump is always wrong.

Because they imagine themselves infinitely superior to the rest of us, the journalistic elite think we don’t notice the methods by which they dishonestly manipulate the narrative. They believe we won’t notice, for example, how they ignore the bungling of Democrats like Mayor de Blasio. Nor are we expected to contrast the media’s alarmism over COVID-19 with the way they treated the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009–10. According to CDC estimates, about 60 million Americans were infected with swine flu, which caused more than a quarter-million hospitalizations and more than 12,000 deaths. Yet cable-news networks didn’t provide 24/7 coverage of the swine flu outbreak or blame President Obama for the spread of the disease, so why is the Chinese coronavirus such an emergency? Obvious answer: “Orange Man Bad!”

We might not resent this belated effort to blame this plague on Trump so much if Democrats and the media (again, I repeat myself) had spent January and February spreading the alarm about COVID-19. But for much of that period, Democrats and their media allies were consumed with impeaching the president over Ukraine, and when that anti-Trump crusade failed, their attention next turned to trying to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It was not until early March — after Biden’s wins on Super Tuesday stopped the Sanders threat — that the coronavirus pandemic became the media’s obsession. It was March 6 that an MSNBC panel discussion hosted by Nicolle Wallace turned into a sort of pep rally for coronavirus, with the guests expressing the enthusiastic hope that the pandemic would become “Trump’s Katrina.”

Having made clear their intention of scapegoating the president for this virus from China, the media are now astonished that Americans aren’t buying their blame game. After polls showed Trump’s approval ratings had risen during this crisis, the networks decided to stop carrying live broadcasts of Trump’s coronavirus briefings. This is more evidence of media bias that we’re supposedly too stupid to notice, in the same way we’re not supposed to notice either (a) Joe Biden’s rapid descent into senility or (b) the media’s effort to promote New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a substitute presidential nominee for the Democrats.

So far, U.S. deaths from COVID-19 are still only a single-digit percentage of the more than 30,000 Americans who die annually from ordinary flu infections. As bad as the coronavirus outbreak is — and it’s likely to get much worse before it gets better — we must keep it in perspective. We must be able to distinguish between real risks from this disease and the politically motivated fear campaign being hyped by the media. Eventually, the coronavirus pandemic will end, but the media’s liberal bias is incurable. From now until November, the blame game will continue, and if Trump gets reelected, we’ll have another four years of the same shrieking journalistic hysteria: “Orange Man Bad!”

Epilogue. I have not posted anything on the virus attacking our country as I am sure you are getting enough from other areas since we are all at home doing our duty to help. But I just had to post this well written article from the American Spectator.  In doing so I  had to throw in some Bathurst thoughts. This virus has brought out the best AND THE WORST In my fellow Americans. New Orleans holds their Mardi Gras,  NYC Mayor tells everyone to go about thei business, Trump is called a racist for shutting off China flights, students defy logic and go on Spring Break,  Pelosi accuses Trump for lack of action, Sleepy Joe tells the Trump he needs to create a task force and put somone in charge of it, etc., etc., etc. It has been a lesson we didn’t need because we already knew it all. Now the MSM thinks Trump is getting too much air time so some are not covering the Daily briefings at all, while others are simply showing sound bites of their choosing. As far as I know, FOX is the only one who still covers the entire briefing.

GM had to be forced into stepping up, while 3M is (was) selling much needed medical supplies overseas – they were afraid it would hurt their reputation. WHAT? Meanwhile 100’s and 100’s of American companies have voluntarily stepped up to do their share. It’s a shame it takes something like a National Emergency to see who’s who and where their priorities lie. Some companies have been caught hoarding medical supplies, which were confiscated by the Government. Let us remember companies like GM and 3M when it comes to buying their products!

We shall prevail and get through this, but let’s not forget what it has told us about some of our so-called Americans!

Originally posted 2020-04-04 10:01:14.

Recent Posts

One Light Bulb at a Time

 

Someone sent me the below piece on the internet. If you can get past the hokey manner in which it’s written, there really is a message here for all of us. Who caused all the corporations to move overseas? While they had much to do with it, I do believe we as consumers must share some of the blame. We bought the “things” made in China, Peru, Korea, Mexico, and even Vietnam to name only a few.

One of our duly elected President ‘s platform legs was to bring jobs back to America; by hook or crook get American corporations to move their plants back inside our borders thereby creating jobs for the American worker. The average American would be shocked to know what is not made in America. Allow me to digress with a story.

In 2000 my bride and I participated in a 43-day RV caravan deep into Mexico in our little 30′ fifth wheel trailer. It was fun and a true learning experience, and one I would never attempt today! Anyway, we entered Mexico around Brownsville, TX and came out in Nogales, AZ. About 50 or so miles south of the border coming out, we came upon the largest factory I have ever seen; it seemed to go on for at least 1/4 mile. There was no name on it; therefore, I had no idea what they were making inside this huge plant. That is, until I got to the northern end and the parking lot. Rows upon rows of GMC trucks waiting to be hauled into the U.S. So, the next time you start ribbing a friend about being UN-Americana by buying a piece of what we used to refer to as”Japanese junk” like a Camry, you best think twice and find out where your Ford, GM, or Chrysler was assembled. My bet is his Camry was made in the new Toyota factory in Chattanooga, TN (by American workers). I’ve toured the plant, and actually spoke with some workers (non-union, I might add), and they loved their jobs.

Can you imagine the impact a national movement could have on the three American car companies if no one bought their cars and trucks because the parts were made here, shipped to Canada or Mexico to be assembled, and then brought back in to sell to American consumers? Just imagine what would happen if we all started reading labels and refused to buy products not Made in the USA.

Trump needs our help folks, he can’t do it all by himself. Let’s help reduce that 44 billion dollar trade deficit by not buying any product made overseas, especially if it was made by an American company who moved out for cheap labor and high taxes. 

If you want to get an idea of just how many cars and trucks are assembled in Mexico, I challenge you to google it. You will be shocked!

I like the name the writer uses, “One Light Bulb at a Time.”

Made in the USA

Costco sells Goodyear wiper blades for almost half the price that you will pay on the outside and they are made in the U.S.A. Read and do the following. Unfortunately our politicians and top CEOs have pushed for trade to China and Mexico for years so Americans are now out of work.

Did you know that there is no electric coffee maker made in the US and that the only kitchen appliances made in the US is Viking? This information came from a report by Diane Sawyer.

Did you know Hallmark Cards were MADE IN CHINA? That’s why I don’t buy cards at Hallmark anymore. They are made in China and are more expensive! I buy them at Dollar Tree – 50 cents each and made in USA.

I have been looking at blenders available on the Internet. Kitchen Aid is MADE IN THE USA.

Yesterday I was in Wal-Mart looking for a wastebasket. I found some Made in China for $6.99. I didn’t want to pay that much so I asked the lady if they had any others. She took me to another department and they had some at $2.50 made in USA. They are just as good. Same as a kitchen rug I needed. I had to look, but I found some Made in The USA – what a concept!  And they were $3.00 cheaper.

We are being brainwashed to believe that everything that comes from China and Mexico is cheaper. Not so.

One Light Bulb at a Time.

I was in Lowe’s the other day and just out of curiosity, I looked at the hose attachments. They were all made in China. The next day I was in Ace Hardware and just for the heck of it I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in USA

Start looking, people. In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else – most often, their job.

My grandson likes Hershey’s candy. I noticed, though, that it is now marked “Made in Mexico.” I don’t buy it anymore. My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico …now I have switched to Crest.

You have to read the labels on everything.

This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed 60 W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets. I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy — was an off-brand labeled, “Everyday Value.” I picked up both types of bulbs and compared them: they were the same except for the price . . . the GE bulbs cost more than the Everyday Value Brand, but the thing that surprised me the most was that the GE was Made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in – you guessed it – the USA at a company in Cleveland, Ohio.

It’s way past time to start finding and buying products you use every day that are made right here. Bounce dryer sheets… Yep, you guessed it, Bounce cost more money and is made in Canada. The Everyday Value Brand cost less, and was MADE IN THE USA! I did laundry and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce I have been using for years, at almost half the price.

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is Made In the USA – The job you save may be your own or your neighbor’s!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time!

Stop buying from overseas companies – you’re sending the jobs there. (We should have awakened a decade ago….)

Let’s get with the program and help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the USA.

Originally posted 2017-02-11 10:39:09.

Current Events

EV or ICE?

1 Comment

Recv’d this via email from a friend this morning. Very Interesting. I have  a Navy buddy with whom I was stationed on the USS Chicago many years ago. Met with him a few years ago and we were talking about auto makers. Because of his job when he left the Navy, he knew several of the auto maker heavies. He related a lunch he had a few weeks earlier with the retired CEO of Ford, Jim Farley. He asked him who he thought would be the big three in 10 years. Without hesitation Farley replied Toyota, Volkswagen, and Ford. As my friend did, I found that interesting, yet when I look at the stats today, I see it coming to fruition.

In case you are considering a move to EV, read this!!!

Depending how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.

GM, America’s largest automaker, is about half Toyota’s size thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring. Toyota is actually a major car manufacturer in the United States; in 2016 it made about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. right here in its nearly half a dozen American plants. If you’re driving a Tundra, RAV4, Camry, or Corolla it was probably American-made in a red state. Toyota was among the first to introduce gas-electric hybrid cars into the market, with the Prius twenty years ago. It hasn’t been afraid to change the car game.

All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports it perhaps better than any other manufacturer on the planet. It hasn’t grown its footprint through acquisitions, as Volkswagen has, and it hasn’t undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades.

When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it’s probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.

Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”

Wimmer’s remarks come on the heels of GM’s announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035. Other manufacturers, including Mini, have followed suit with similar announcements.

Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world’s largest engine manufacturer when you take its boat, motorcycle, lawnmower, and other engines it makes outside the auto market into account. Honda competes in those markets with Briggs & Stratton and the increased electrification of lawnmowers, weed trimmers, and the like.

Wimmer noted that while manufactures have announced ambitious goals, just 2% of the world’s cars are electric at this point. For price, range, infrastructure, affordability, and other reasons, buyers continue to choose ICE over electric, and that’s even when electric engines are often subsidized with tax breaks to bring price tags down.

The scale of the switch hasn’t even been introduced into the conversation in any systematic way yet. According to FinancesOnline, there are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered. Toyota’s RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the U.S. market in 2019, with Honda’s CR-V in second. GM’s top seller, the Chevy Equinox, comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. This is in the U.S. market, mind. GM only has one entry in the top 15 in the U.S. Toyota and Honda dominate, with a handful each in the top 15.

Toyota warns that the grid and infrastructure simply aren’t there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. A 2017 U.S. government study found that we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charge stations to support a fleet of just 7 million electric cars. That’s about six times the current number of electric cars but no one is talking about supporting just 7 million cars. We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years, if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.

Simply put, we’re gonna need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids. A LOT bigger.

But instead of building a bigger boat, we may be shrinking the boat we have now. The power outages in California and Texas — the largest U.S. states by population and by car ownership — exposed issues with powering needs even at current usage levels. Increasing usage of wind and solar, neither of which can be throttled to meet demand, and both of which prove unreliable in crisis, has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline. Wind simply runs counter to needs — it generates too much power when we tend not to need it, and generates too little when we need more. The storage capacity to account for this doesn’t exist yet.

We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we’re all going to be forced to drive electric cars. Whether we’re charging them at home or charging them on the road, we will be charging them frequently. Every gas station you see on the roadside today will have to be wired to charge electric cars, and charge speeds will have to be greatly increased. Current technology enables charges in “as little as 30 minutes,” according to Kelly Blue Book. That best-case-scenario fast charging cannot be done on home power. It uses direct current and specialized systems. Charging at home on alternating current can take a few hours to overnight to fill the battery, and will increase the home power bill. That power, like all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using natural gas, petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. I left out biomass because, despite Austin, Texas’ experiment with purchasing a biomass plant to help power the city, biomass is proving to be irrelevant in the grand energy scheme thus far. Austin didn’t even turn on its biomass plant during the recent freeze.

Half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend at an electron pump. It’s about 5 to 10 times longer than a current trip to the gas pump tends to take when pumps can push 4 to 5 gallons into your tank per minute. That’s for consumer cars, not big rigs that have much larger tanks. Imagine the lines that would form at the pump, every day, all the time, if a single charge time isn’t reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements, but those won’t come without cost. Nothing does. There is no free lunch. Electrifying the auto fleet will require a massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation. Elon Musk recently said we might need double the amount of power we’re currently generating if we go electric. He’s not saying this from a position of opposing electric cars. His Tesla dominates that market and he presumably wants to sell even more of them.

Toyota has publicly warned about this twice, while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be virtue signaling to win favor with those in power in California and Washington and in the media. Toyota’s addressing reality and its record is evidence that it deserves to be heard.

Toyota isn’t saying none of this can be done, by the way. It’s just saying that so far, the conversation isn’t anywhere near serious enough to get things done.

Postscript: As part of an RV club rally, I toured the new Toyota plant in Chattanooga several years after it was up and running. What an experience. You could eat off the damn floor, workers were smiling, waving at us, happy, polite, and it was obvious they loved their job. After the tour we were taken into a large conference room and showed a Toyota  propaganda video. One of the other guests asked the woman why isn’t Toyota unionized. She laughed and said the company welcomes  UAW to come give their pitch at the plant about once a year. They allow them to put up posters all over the plant announcing the upcoming UAW meeting. They even allow the workers time off to attend the meeting. She said the last meeting had four attendees. He asked how many employees the plant had and she said” A little over 4,000.”  This plant made the Camry, and she told us every part of their Camry is made right in the US, nothing comes from Japan, Nuff said.

Recent Posts

Indoctrinated to be inoculated

9 Comments

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, been busy, too busy for a man my age. LOL The fact is my computer was in the shop for a much-needed health checkup. All’s well now and am back. While there is so much going on in the new world order and in our beloved country, I find today’s post to be of import to many.  To be upfront and honest, as I always try to be, I had my first vaccine shot (Pfizer and Moderna type) two weeks ago with no side effects at all, and will get my second in two weeks. So, the decision is all yours. Good luck!

Meanwhile our move towards a Socialist third world sh*t hole continues at a fast pace supported by the MSM, the rich and famous, and everyone else who stands to benefit from such a move. Of course, you and I do not stand a chance of gaining anything from it. I see in my area gasoline has already risen $0.40 per gallon.  My uneducated guess is it will cross the $3.00 mark before summer is out.

Meanwhile, I await my $1,200 stimulus check to arrive, and must decide what I shall do with it. Any suggestions?  Have you read what is included in the  trillion dollar stimulus package? I suggest you do so. I had to actually search for something that had anything to do with COVID. And how about the nine GOP senators who crossed the aisle and voted to impeach {President Trump? I wonder what their constituents think about that? Oh well, have a great day and it’s good to be back! Semper Fi Devil Dogs!

By: Greg Maresca

 

Most COVID-19 cases have had mild symptoms and despite an average mortality rate north of 75 years and a 99.6% survival level, vaccination is a must.  The virus’ ability to infect political tyrants more concerned with their “great reset” than Constitutional rights continues to metastasize.

The hype and fear campaign continues unabated despite a thousand-fold risk difference between young and old.  To “flatten the curve,” lockdowns, masks and social distancing went vogue and those who stray are shamed and ridiculed.

None of this is a panacea.

Neither is a vaccine.

A Gallup poll says 40% are unwilling to vaccinate and unlikely to change their minds. A Kaiser Family Foundation report said nearly one-third of hospital staff “would not get vaccinated.” Over half of the members of New York’s Uniformed Firefighters Association would also refuse.

The reasons are legion with unknown side effects, genome manipulation, and high-tech chip branding leading the charge. The British government warned pregnant women not to vaccinate because there is “no or limited data on the effects to the child and to fertility.”  The CDC agrees, “… only limited data are available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines administered during pregnancy.”  Are long-term infertility issues in a Western world with already declining birthrates just another function of the great reset?

Other reports say the Moderna, and Pfizer vaccines could cause blood clots, brain inflammation and heart attacks and its effects on compromised immune systems remain suspect.  Despite a plethora of concerns, the vaccine received “emergency authorization” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Even smokers still have the right to smoke despite the known dangers. What is the real motivation for attempting to vaccinate millions of healthy people?

No need to fear because the vaccine success rate increased from 80% to 95% after the numbers were run by Dominion and any chip implant will be a Spicy Nacho Dorito.

Sarcasm aside, concerns about the vaccine’s safety and ethics are understandable considering its unprecedented development and distribution that normally would take years. Were cells from aborted babies used in its development and what procedures were circumvented to get it to the market so quickly?

The practice of medicine has been lobbied with Uncle Sam governing nearly two-thirds of healthcare.  It is evident that since COVID began, a simple, cost-effective solution would never be allowed.  When science is politicized, we all lose as the medical malpractice of the pandemic will continue, especially when the only medical opinion permitted is Uncle Sam’s.

The Great Barrington Declaration, that can be found online, has been signed by over 55,000 medical and public health scientists.  They have affirmed that due to the relatively mild hazard of COVID-19 to the vast majority, “those who are at minimal risk” should be permitted “to live their lives normally [and] build up (herd) immunity to the virus.”

Research Dr. Michael Yeadon with over 30 years with Pfizer said in LifeSite news: “There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”

Yeadon underscored 30 to 40% had T-cell immunity prior to the virus, and with nearly 30% having already been infected means we have reached the 65 to 72% level of herd immunity and that “the pandemic is effectively over.”

Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center said since long-term effects remain unknown due to the lack of extended testing, coercion to vaccinate is “ethically unacceptable.”

The resolve that vaccination is somehow a social responsibility is not a self-evident truth.  No matter how noble, it is limited.  As immunity builds, the risk of infection drops.  Herd immunity certainly fits as we stampede into hysteria too easily. The ends do not justify immoral or unethical means.

A dishonest press and rampant censorship by social media regarding the inexpensive, safe and effective therapies like ivermectin, colchicine, fluvoxamine and hydroxychloroquine could have prevented many from dying.

The cure should never be more invasive than the disease.

When a vaccine to protect us from Leftism is developed, I will consider.